Substitute Teacher Training

Tomorrow is the substitute teacher training class for potential substitutes at our school.   I have been looking forward to this class, talking about this class and mostly saying it isn’t coming fast enough.    From last year there weren’t many substitutes that were willing to remain on the sub list for the school and this has posed a problem up until now.

For the first four weeks of school there have been needs for teachers to take sick children to the doctor, go to an appointment themselves, be out for being ill or take planned vacations.   These teachers needed coverage for their classrooms and the available substitutes compromised a thin list.  

The number of substitute requests I’ve turned down so far this year has been far too many, and by that I mean we need more substitutes.   We had a fever going around—that both of my children caught—which put many of our teachers out at once.  I couldn’t help as I was home with two sick children myself.

So tomorrow we have nineteen people attending the substitute training class, myself included.   I’ve been talking up the role of substitute because I think it’s one of the best ways to understand what happens in the classroom, even if you’ll likely not be in your child’s class.  

Hopefully we’ll have a “deeper bench” of subs after tomorrow’s class.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband went to the Halloween store with my son today.  My son loves all the costumes but doesn’t like to be scared overly much.   When dad would put on a scary mask he would like it but then he would change his mind, saying, “take it off, dad.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been coming downstairs at night recently.   She told me two days ago she didn’t think her bed was comfortable.   She has made several comments about not liking her bed lately.   She didn’t have a mattress pad and her mattress was rather uncomfortable feeling to me being a sheet over a plastic mattress protector.   Today we added a comfortable mattress pad.   Tomorrow she’s going to put on a new comforter and sheets she selected.   We’re hoping she’ll be happy to be in her bed after the changes.